


1-10 Steven's Lion

by iippo



Series: Steven Universe Renaissance [10]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:42:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25688278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iippo/pseuds/iippo
Summary: Steven makes friends with a magical lion, but can't quite tell why it likes him.
Series: Steven Universe Renaissance [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1796686
Kudos: 10





	1-10 Steven's Lion

**Author's Note:**

> An alternative universe. See series page for details.

Steven Universe and Amethyst, also known as the Crystal Gems, were on an important gem mission in the Sahara desert. Unfortunately they hadn’t taken timezones into account when planning their trip; so they left Beach City by warp that morning and arrived in Africa in the scorching heat of the afternoon. Amethyst of course didn’t notice much of a difference, since she was a gem, but Steven, being half-human, was really feeling it.

He was crawling on his knees through the sand as they made their way through walls, pillars, staircases and other architectural features all magically composed of sand, that collapsed and reformed and collapsed again in an endless repeating loop all around them without any clear reason.

“W-Water... Water... So thirsty... For water...” Steven mumbled through his parched lips.

“It'd be better if you just stood up and walked,” Amethyst pointed out from a few steps ahead of him. “Get your head away from the dust.” 

“You don't... understand...” Steven panted. “This... is how... you're supposed to act... in the desert...”

He crawled to the top of the dune where Amethyst had stopped to wait for him. Realising that they were seeing something interesting, he dropped his parched-in-the-desert -act and stood up to see better. “Is this the thing?”

“Yes,” Amethyst said and looked at the landscape. It looked like an ancient gem structure, but as if it was in flux: columns of sand appearing and disappearing at random, stairs leading to nowhere – aimless.

Amethyst rolled down the dune like a beach ball. Steven was about to say something when they were startled by a roar from nowhere.

“What was that?!” Steven said and looked around everywhere, turning his head this way and that so quickly that it sent droplets of sweat flying everywhere.

“Wait here Steven!” Amethyst yelled and ran off towards the direction of the sound.

“What if something eats me?!” Steven called after her, but Amethyst was gone. “...okay,” he mumbled, too hot to run after her.

He looked around and headed for a spot of shade under a column. He sat down next to it, sweating buckets. “It's. So. Desert,” he mumbled to himself and pulled his t-shirt up and over his eyes to protect them from the brightness and from the saltiness of the sweat dripping into them. Still all around him pillars of sand appeared and disappeared at random. The sun blared down on his exposed gem in the middle of his belly. It felt kind of nice, and as the gem felt the warmth of the sun, he started to feel cooler and more energised.

Steven’s rest in the blissful darkness under his shirt was interrupted by a low, growling sound.

“What was that?” He said and lifted the shirt off his eyes to scan his surroundings. He could see nothing but flat sand and the other, vertically flat sand that formed and unformed into pillars and walls as it pleased.

Right as he was about to settle back down, he noticed a shadowy figure by one of the sand columns. It was taller than Steven and suddenly looked straight at him. Steven startled by the stare of the glowing eyes and ran to hide behind the column he’d been sitting by.

“Good thing this column was here,” Steven mused, and of course right at that point the column collapsed back into sand.

The menacing figure had walked right up to the column and as it dissipated Steven was left face to face with the monster. It had pink fur and a pink mane.

“Aaah!?” Steven yelped and fell backwards in fright. He scooted away from the beast, going “no, no, no.” A wall of sand appeared directly behind Steven, blocking his exit. Steven cowered in fear, trying to summon his shield.

But nothing happened.

“Huh?” Steven looked up.

He realised that he wasn’t under attack from a gem monster, and that instead he was looking at a lion, a regular Earth animal, albeit pink. The lion yawned, smacked his lips and laid down on the sand.

“Huh,” Steven remarked and stood up.

He approached the animal carefully, watching it intently, startling even at the slightest twitch of the lion’s ear or whisker. He got closer and closer, and the lion lifted its head and opened its eyes to look at what he was doing.

Steven reached his hand out and carefully touched the lion’s nose – it was the size of his whole hand.

“Don’tbite!” Steven yelped and leaped backwards, but the lion didn’t move at all.

Steven reached out to touch the lion again and petted his entire face, realising that the animal was tame.

“Aw, you just wanted attention, didn'tchoo, didn'tchoo?” he cooed while petting the lion all over. He touched the lion’s mane and admired it. “Your mane, it's so... soft,” he said and buried his whole face in the fur. He leaned his whole weight on the lion and slid down along its side to sit on the sand.

“So, you from around here? I'm just here on business,” Steven chatted while the lion licked its paw. “I really like your pink fur. You're like the cotton candy of the jungle!” Steven climbed on the lion’s back, inched forward and flopped on the huge mane-covered head.

The lion tipped onto its side, causing Steven to fall off.

He climbed back on again and continued chatting.

“I always wanted an animal friend. But I thought-“ His thought was interrupted as he overshot his mount and fell on the other side of the lion’s body. The lion kept an eye on Steven’s activity but didn’t move. “-it would be like a goldfish. Or a dinosaur!” He continued, unphased. “But I guess fate had other plans for Steven Universe...!” The lion lifted its foreleg and embraced Steven, pinning him to the ground. Steven was over the moon: “...and his best friend Lion!” He whispered with stars in his eyes.

All of a sudden all the sand structured collapsed as one. Steven and Lion were both covered in sand from the falling columns. They sat up trying to shake the sand out of their respective hair.

Soon Amethyst was back, carrying a little red pillow with a green gem attached to it.

Steven gasped. “Amethyst is coming! Quick, put my head in your mouth!” He said to the lion and tried to open his maw. But the animal wasn’t coöperating.

Amethyst noticed them, and even though Steven’s head was not in the lion’s mouth, she yelped: “Steven! What is that?! What are you doing?!” She summoned her weapon in alarm.

“Uhhhh... U-Uh stop! It's okay! Look, he's totally tame!”

“Isn’t that... impossible?” Amethyst said doubtfully. She and Rose had tried to tame Earth animals in the past and it had never worked.

“No it isn't! I-I taught him to say ‘I love you.’” Steven grabbed the lion’s face and moved its lips while growling “I love you."

“That's so sweet! I-I love you too,” Amethyst blustered. Steven beamed.

“But it’s time for us to go, we gotta get the Desert Glass–“ Amethyst presented the gem she had poofed, “out of the desert. Cos it’ll reform if it gets back onto sand.”

“Okay, give me a sec,” Steven replied and turned to the lion. “Hey Lion, I gotta go. I had a lot of fun, I feel like you really get me,” Steven explained and the lion stared back blankly. Steven placed his finger across the lion’s lips “Shhhh... This is already too hard for the both of us.” He ran off to catch up with Amethyst.

Steven and Amethyst warped back to the Beach House and hung out for the rest of the afternoon. They had snacks, built a pillow fort – with the Desert Glass on its pillow as the top of the fort – and fell asleep in it.

Steven woke up slowly to a sound coming from the front door, like something scratching.

“What's that sound?” Steven mumbled.

Amethyst slapped her hand over Steven's mouth. “All I hear is your mouth,” she muttered without opening her eyes.

“I thought gems don't need sleep,” Steven protested into Amethyst’s hand.

“We don't,” Amethyst admitted and moved her hand. “Feels good though,” she sighed.

The scratching noise didn’t stop.

Steven grumbled and got up. “Ugghh, it’s probably some kid trying to sell me lava insurance. Hold your britches!” He called towards the door as he lumbered to the entrance to see what was up.

He opened the front door and gasped: it was the lion he had met in the desert earlier. “Lion! Oh my gosh! This is such a surprise! You came all this way to see little old me?”

Lion stepped forward to enter the building but Steven blocked him with a laugh. “Woah, you're fresh!” He reached to close the door behind him and stood on the porch with the animal. “You can't go in there, Amethyst is pretend-sleeping,” he explained.

“But whatevs,” Steven brushed the air like it was no thang, “we're together again. Now we can do everything best friends do!”

\- - -

The sky was still blue in the late afternoon in Beach City. Steven stood on the ledge of the hill that his house sat on, while the lion was at the bottom of the hill on the beach. Steven had come up with a game for the two of them to play.

“Okay, here I come. I'm gonna jump. Get into position, ready?” Steven called to the disinterested animal sitting in the sand.

“Aaannnddd, catch me! I'm jumping!” Steven continued, trying to fake about-to-jump so that the lion would join in the game. But it did nothing.

“Catch me! I'm falling! Do it, catch me, I'll die! Eeee!” He kept coaxing, but the lion just glared at him.

Steven gave up on the idea and the lion turned his back on the cliff and sat down. “Okay, obviously, you're not into this-“ He tripped and fell down the cliff, landing face down. “...game,” he finished his sentence, mumbling into the sand.

\- - -

Steven had fetched a tennis ball and he was holding it high in the air for the lion – sitting a tennis court’s distance away from the boy – to see. “Okay, gonna throw this ball. Here it comes!” He called out and threw the ball.

It was a beautiful throw and it landed on the sand directly in front of the animal.

“WHAAAAAAAAT?!” Steven covered his face and hollered in frustration that the lion hadn’t caught his throw. “That throw was so good!” He ran over and picked the ball up. “Lion!” He scolded. “All you gotta do is catch it in your mouth, see?” He demonstrated how to do it by tossing the ball in the air in front of him and catching it with his mouth.

The lion turned away. Steven spat the tennis ball out.

“Aw, you don't like that one either?” He asked, disappointed.

The animal turned to walk off, but Steven stopped him.

“Okay, wait, I've got something you've gotta like!” He announced: “Fish Stew Pizza.”

They walked over to the pizza restaurant on the Boardwalk.

“Cats love fish, everybody loves pizza, so you're gonna love this!” Steven explained to the lion as they approached. He peeked in through the glass door and saw some familiar faces in the restaurant: Ronaldo Fryman and Onion were both sitting at their respective tables. “Woah, this place is jumpin'! Wait here, we're gonna blow some minds,” he instructed the animal and went inside.

“Hey guys!” Steven greeted. Onion glanced at him, Ronaldo kept working on his laptop, but no one replied to Steven’s greeting. “I'm doin' okay, you know? Just gettin' some pizza,” he chatted, working the room, preparing to blow everyone’s minds. “Kofi, Kiki,” he greeted the members of the Pizza family behind the counter, leaning on it casually.

“What're you having, Steven?” Kiki Pizza asked. Her father Kofi owned the restaurant, so she and her twin sister Jenny often worked the counter. Kofi nodded to Steven as he headed out to do deliveries.

“Large pizza please, extra fishy,” Steven placed his order.

“You must be hungry,” Kiki said as she input the order into the cash register.

Steven chuckled and waved his hand dismissively. “I'm ordering for two,” he said and put two fingers up for emphasis.

Ronaldo Fryman had overheard the entire discussion and spat out his drink all over his laptop at Steven’s words. “Steven's pregnant?!”

“I don't think so,” Steven hurried to correct the misunderstanding. “But I have a giant pet lion right outside!”

“You're not ‘lion’ are you?” Kiki asked with a cheeky grin.

Steven laughed. “That's funny! But I'm not.”

Ronaldo stood up, excited. “I believe it! Lots of weird stuff happens in Beach City. You'd know if you read my blog ‘Keep Beach City Weird’!” He turned his laptop so that they could see the cola-drenched screen, where he had published a post about Steven’s cat fingers. “I also have buttons!” He added, opening his short-sleeved collar shirt to reveal an undershirt full of buttons advertising his blog.

“Just go outside and see for yourselves,” Steven instructed. Ronaldo ran out followed by Kiki and Onion.

“This is amazing!” Ronaldo shouted before the others had stepped out.

Steven nodded, basking in the glow of the blown minds. “Mm-hmm!”

“It's invisible!” Ronaldo marveled.

“Huh? What?!” Steven ran outside after the others. Onion and Kiki were standing by the door, annoyed at having been tricked. “He's not invisible. He's pink.”

Ronaldo was waving his arms in the air aimlessly, trying to pet Steven’s invisible lion. “Pink? How can he be invisible _and_ pink?” He asked, confused.

“There's nothing out here, Ronaldo. Steven was ‘lion’,” Kiki explained. “Sorry for using the same pun twice.” She went back inside.

“Bet you're not even pregnant...” Ronaldo mumbled and followed after Kiki.

“No, I'm telling the truth, he's real!” Steven pleaded with their unforgiving backs. “Onion, you believe me, right?” He turned to his tiny friend Onion, who glared at him angrily with such fierceness that Steven flinched.

\- - -

Steven walked back to his house, disappointed and dissuaded. As he was getting closer, he saw that the lion was at the front door, scratching it again. There were deep gashes in the wood.

Steven was cross to find him here again. “Hey, hey Lion! You left me at the pizza place, I looked like a fool! I had to eat a whole pizza by myself!” He yelled as he got closer. The animal glanced at him with his glowing eyes, but didn’t seem remorseful of his past behaviour.

The lion turned back to the door and, taking a more drastic approach, crashed right through the door and into the house.

“Lion? Lion no!” Steven yelled in confusion and followed it inside.

The animal was facing the pillow fort, in which Amethyst was still fast asleep, and on top of which was still perched the Desert Glass, which Amethyst had brought back from Sahara.

“Lion?” Steven said, with the dawning horror that the animal might hurt Amethyst. But before Steven managed to do anything to stop it, the lion roared at the pillow fort so loud Steven had to cover his ears. But it wasn’t a normal roar of an animal: it seemed to emit some kind of magical force, which sent Amethyst tumbling and knocked over all the couch cushions used in the pillow fort construction.

Amethyst yawned and waved in the lion’s general direction, mumbling “keep it down Steven,” before falling back asleep.

Steven was still confused, but his concern for Amethyst’s safety was transforming into annoyance towards the animal. “What was that for?” He demanded. The lion looked up, towards the loft where Steven slept. Steven followed its gaze and saw the pillow with the Desert Glass on it on the floor by his bed, thrown all the way up there by the lion’s roar. He ran up the steps and grabbed the object of the lion’s interest.

“Is this what you wanted? This pillow? I've been trying to play with you, and feed you, 'cause I thought we were best friends. Did all of that mean nothing to you?” Steven was very upset that it looked like the lion had just pretended to be his friend to get the gem. Tears were welling in his eyes and his voice grew thin.

The lion stared at him with glowing eyes and climbed onto the loft in one huge step. Steven ran back down the stairs and out of the house.

“Fine! I don't care! If you want it, you can have it!” He flung the pillow with the green gem attached to it like a frisbee off the porch and towards the beach. It landed on the sand with a thud and began immediately to reform the sandcastle.

Steven realised his mistake and ran to the beach to retrieve the gem. The entire beach, including the Beach House, was shaking and even Amethyst couldn’t sleep through such a ruckus. She ran outside to the deck. In one glance she figured out what was going on.

“Steven! The Desert Glass, it's rebuilding its castle!”

Steven had reached the sandcastle but couldn’t see the gem anywhere – it had built up its fortifications closer to itself this time so that it wouldn’t be disrupted. A sandstorm also began to build up.

“Aah! What do I do?” Steven cried out.

“Don’t move! I’m coming!” Amethyst yelled and ran down the steps.

“Okay!” Steven replied waving his arms as the sand flying through the air engulfed him.

Despite promising to not move, Steven had to move away from the whirling sand stinging his skin and eyes. He stumbled into the eye of the sandstorm, where it was calm. He saw the sand structures building up around a central point – where he saw the Desert Glass rest.

“There it is, the pillow! I have to get it off the sand!” Steven began to make his way towards the gem.

He ran up a set of stairs but as he got to the top it crumbled and broke away from under him. He leapt to the top of a growing pillar, which grew and grew, taller and taller with him dangling on it, barely keeping his grip in the whirling wind.

Amethyst’s progress to help Steven had been halted by a giant wall the Desert Glass had erected all across the beach. No matter what she tried, there was no impact on the structure. And suddenly, a column appeared right below her, forming fast like a punch and launched her into the air, where the sandstorm spun her around like a candy wrapper.

Steven had managed to climb onto the pillar he was on and jumped from pillar to pillar to get closer to the central structure the Desert Glass was spinning around itself. He managed to get close, but the gem must have detected him, for the pillar he was on tipped him over and sent him falling towards a pit of sand spikes.

But something fast and soft broke his fall.

The pink lion had leapt across the pit of spikes at the exact right time to catch Steven on its back.

Steven opened his eyes and looked down. “Lion?!” He yelped in astonishment.

The lion manoeuvred nimbly across the traps and obstacles that the Desert Glass was erecting, heading to the center. Steven acted as a lookout.

“It's there!” Steven spotted it and pointed. The lion growled in agreement. “It's putting up defences, how are we gonna get up there?!”

The lion let out a magical roar that decimating some of the obtruding sand spikes.

“Yep, sounds good. Let's go!” Steven agreed with a grin.

More sand columns appeared in front of them, blocking their path. The lion angled its head and roared upwards, knocking the columns over instead of dissipating them. The pile of columns created a bridge right towards the center where the Desert Glass was sitting, and the lion ran up to it with practised ease.

At the last leap Steven called out “Now, Lion!” and the lion roared, punching a hole into the wall behind which the Desert Glass was hiding. They flew through the hole and the other side, and Steven grabbed the pillow as they passed.

The sand structures and the sandstorm immediately dissipated. The lion biffed its landing, doing an ungraceful belly flop instead and Steven fell off and tumbled across the sand, the Desert Glass and its pillow safely in hand. Amethyst fell like a rock right next to him.

Steven chuckled nervously when Amethyst lifted her head. She grinned, took the gem and bubbled it.

“Why didn’t we do that in the first place?” Steven asked Amethyst.

“In my defence, I forgot,” she explained and sent the bubble away by tapping the top of it.

Steven turned towards the lion, who had come up to them. “So I guess, this is goodbye. We had some good times, but I'm sure you have other magical stuff to smash with other magical boys.”

He grabbed the lion’s lips and while moving them, growled: "I love you Steven. I want to stay with you forever!" Steven gasped. “Really? Amethyst, did you hear that? Is it okay?”

Amethyst was moved. “O-of course, he can stay with us!”

“Yay, Lion!” Steven celebrated, and made the animal wink by closing its eye with his hands while saying “Wink!” for effect.

  
  



End file.
